Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and welcome to the 17th meeting in 2024 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. We have received apologies from Fergus Ewing, but I am delighted to welcome Marie McNair, who joins us live in the committee room, rather than online, for the first time.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to take in private items 4 and 5, which relate to the evidence that we are about to hear and to the committee’s work programme?

Members indicated agreement.

What about the places bit of your title?

That brings us to petition PE1941, lodged by Councillor Andrew Stuart Wood, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to monitor and regulate actions taken by local authorities when undertaking their statutory duty of ensuring health and safety within our cemeteries.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 24 January 2024, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government. Colleagues who were on the committee at the time might remember that we had a pretty extensive portfolio of illustrative examples of the destruction of headstones, including headstones that had just been buried—ostensibly to make them more secure—in a way that left half of the headstone missing, so that people could not see whose burial the stone marked.

The Scottish Government is taking forward the development of the draft burial regulations and, as part of that work, it consulted on the management of burial grounds, application for burial, exhumation, private burial and restoration of lairs. The analysis of this consultation has now been published, and the key findings include: support for the introduction of a burial management plan; agreement with the proposed powers to enable burial authorities to manage and maintain burial grounds to a safe standard; and support for the proposal to require burial authorities to contact lair holders prior to taking corrective action in relation to a lair, headstone or other memorial.

In view of the fact that that work has been agreed and is to progress, do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

Are members content to proceed on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

A little earlier, I heard you say—as others, possibly Nick Kempe, have said—that there are alternative or complementary mechanisms to the designation of a national park that might achieve a similar outcome. Can you give examples of alternative or complementary ways forward that might deliver those results?

The first new petition is PE2113, lodged by Wilson and Hannah Chowdhry, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide support to communities that are affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

The petition calls for a national fund to be set up to assist struggling homeowners and tenants who are affected by RAAC; and for the initiation of a public inquiry to investigate the practices of councils and housing associations on the issue, including investigation of how business related to RAAC was conducted, the handling of safety reports and property sales, the disclosure of RAAC, and responses to homeowners’ concerns. It also calls for legislation that is similar to the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 to be introduced or updated to ensure that developers, councils and housing associations are held accountable for using substandard property materials. Such legislation should mandate risk disclosure and make surveyors and solicitors liable for untraced defects, and it should include provision for a comprehensive register of high-risk buildings in Scotland.

The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing notes that, although the Scottish Government is not currently providing financial support to homeowners or local authorities for RAAC remediation work, it previously operated a scheme to support those who had a bought a home designated as having inherent structural defects.

In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government set out that

“the presence of RAAC in a building does not necessarily mean that the building is unsafe”,

and recommends that homeowners follow the risk-based approach of the Institution of Structural Engineers, as there may be no issues to address at some properties. The response goes on to state that Scottish Government is committed to working with the UK Government on the issue, and also references the requirement for local authorities to have in place a scheme of assistance strategy, which should set out the support available to private homeowners to make repairs to their home.

The response also mentions plans to review the Scottish home report, which is expected to consider how to ensure buyers can make an informed decision in relation to undertaking more detailed surveys, including structural reports establishing how the property is built, what materials are used and how these will perform in the future.

The petitioners have also provided two written submissions, the first of which comments on the Scottish Government’s response and raises concerns about the action, or lack thereof, that has been taken by local authorities to address this issue. In particular, the petitioners highlight that, although Scottish councils offer advice and guidance through the scheme of assistance strategy, none of them offers financial support to homeowners aiming to retain and remediate their properties.

The petitioners’ second submission follows the recent UK budget and the announcement of an additional £3.4 billion for Scotland, and calls for a portion of that funding to be allocated to support the needs of homeowners who are affected by RAAC. We have also received submissions from our MSP colleagues Edward Mountain and Murdo Fraser in support of the petition’s aims.

We have received comprehensive information in advance of our consideration of the petition. Do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed with what is an important petition? Many of us will have seen documentary coverage of the issues arising from buildings that are affected by RAAC.

Will you get an academic, arm’s-length organisation to take a look and analyse that?

Our next continued petition is PE1896, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to replace the disposable water bottle that is provided with primary school lunches with a sustainable reusable metal bottle. The petition was lodged quite some time ago by Callum Isted—in fact, it was so long ago that we are on to our third First Minister since then.

Once again, we are joined for our consideration of the petition by our colleague Sue Webber. Good morning, Ms Webber.

Our most recent consideration of the petition was on 24 January 2024, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. Members will recall that the cabinet secretary had asked each local authority for information on how water is provided to pupils in their schools, how that meets sustainability requirements and whether local authorities would be interested in participating in a national procurement exercise for reusable metal water bottles. We asked whether the cabinet secretary would be willing to progress a procurement exercise with the local authorities that had indicated that they had an interest in obtaining reusable bottles.

In her response, the cabinet secretary explained that, because only 13 local authorities were interested, with six of them noting that their developing their interest was contingent on the exercise being centrally funded, the Scottish Government has determined that it will not take forward work on a national procurement exercise at this time.

Before we decide on what options are left open to us, I invite Sue Webber to address the committee.

He was seven when he started his campaign.

Do you mean that we have had three First Ministers in two years? [Laughter.]